When the first in-house companies of the public administration approached the Foundation for Digital Sustainability, they did so with a non-episodic curiosity and with a precise awareness: the issue of digital sustainability could not be interpreted as a mere reputational exercise, nor as a label to be added to already defined projects. On the contrary, it had to become a concrete criterion for guiding public choices, processes and strategies.
From this need a path was born that, over time, has taken on an increasingly clear appearance. In-house companies, due to their particular nature, are in fact in a unique position: they are part of the public ecosystem, they are familiar with its constraints, needs and dynamics, but at the same time they operate on a daily basis in the field of technological innovation, procurement, digital service design and relations with the market. This is precisely why they can become a decisive junction between digital transformation and sustainability.
The basic question, from the outset, was this: how to ensure that digital sustainability does not remain an abstract principle, but becomes an organisational culture, design capacity and operational criterion within public administrations? The answer identified by the working group was progressive: in-house organisations can act as a true enabler, an institutional ‘picklock’ capable of accompanying member PAs towards greater awareness and the adoption of practices consistent with the objectives of digital sustainability.
A group born of confrontation and grown in practice
The path started with a small core of actors, united by the desire to give substance to an issue that was still being defined. Over time, the group has expanded, involving other public IT realities, including companies that can be traced back to association networks and ICT in-house comparison circuits.
The method chosen was simple but effective: regular meetings, constant comparison, shared analysis of experiences and progressive identification of common elements. It was not a question of constructing a formal table as an end in itself, but a working space in which the participating companies could measure themselves against real problems: the relationship with the controlling administrations, the ability to steer technological choices, the supervision of skills, the territorial impact, the measurement of results, the relationship with the market and public authorities.
A shared conviction emerged from this discussion: digital sustainability must be integrated into ordinary choices, not confined to a separate chapter. It must enter into procurement, service design, infrastructure management, impact assessment, security, digital sovereignty, and measuring the maturity of territories and administrations.
The Decalogue as the first common platform
One of the most significant results of the group’s work was the construction of a decalogue dedicated to the relationship between in-house companies and digital sustainability. The document represented a first common platform, useful not only to describe the role of in-house companies, but also to measure the consistency of the actions undertaken.
The decalogue starts from a central assumption: the public administration has a crucial role in the digital transformation of the country and can become an essential enabler of digital sustainability. In-house companies, as operational tools of the administrations, can contribute to this objective thanks to their proximity to public bodies, their knowledge of administrative processes and their ability to translate public needs into technological solutions.
Among the most relevant points is the recognition of in-house as a strategic support for sustainable digital transformation, with a focus on inclusion, transparency and accessibility. Indeed, public digital cannot be evaluated only in terms of technical efficiency: it must guarantee equal access to services, reduce inequalities and contribute to the full realisation of citizens’ rights.
Another decisive element concerns the function of in-house companies as a bridge between public demand and private supply. These companies do not replace the market, but help the PA to qualify demand, to define requirements consistent with the public interest and to direct innovation towards collective goals. In this sense, digital sustainability also becomes a criterion of good administration: it serves to choose better, design better, purchase better and evaluate better.
The decalogue also valorises the wealth of knowledge held by in-house companies on the infrastructure, systems, software and processes of public bodies. This knowledge represents a strategic asset, because it makes it possible to guarantee continuity of services, security, public control and capacity for evolution. It is a particularly important point today, in a context in which digital transformation is increasingly intertwined with issues of technological sovereignty, cybersecurity and risk management.
Measuring to guide decisions
The group has placed great emphasis on measurement. Indeed, talking about digital sustainability without indicators risks producing generic statements. Measurement, on the other hand, allows us to understand where territories are, which practices work, which elements can be replicated and where action is needed.
Hence the interest in territorial indices and analysis tools capable of rendering the level of maturity of administrations and territories with respect to digital sustainability. The objective is not to build rankings for their own sake, but to identify trajectories of improvement, enhance best practices and generate reward mechanisms consistent with actual results.
In this perspective, the analysis of the experiences of the different in-house companies takes on a particular value. Practices developed in the territories can become common heritage, provided they are read, compared and made transferable. The group has worked precisely in this direction: transforming specific cases into shared knowledge, preventing experiments from remaining isolated.
Congruity, public value and strategic choices
One issue that has emerged strongly is that of congruity. Traditionally, congruity is often interpreted in a primarily economic key, as a check on the consistency of costs. The group’s work has instead pushed towards a broader interpretation: congruity must also concern the strategic value of actions, their consistency with public objectives, their impact on territories, and their ability to generate sustainability in the medium and long term.
This approach overcomes a reductive view of digital spending. It is not enough to ask how much a project costs: it is necessary to ask what value it produces, what dependencies it creates or reduces, what skills it leaves with the PA, what benefits it generates for citizens and businesses, what impact it has on the environment, society, governance, security and technological autonomy.
Appropriateness, read in this way, becomes a tool for governing digital transformation. It is not just an ex ante or ex post verification, but a design criterion. It serves to guide choices and to make the link between digital investments and public interest more explicit.
From the vertical dimension to the general contribution of the Foundation
Over time, the group dedicated to in-house companies has become increasingly important within the Foundation. Some topics that started out as specific to the relationship between in-house companies and PA have gradually become more general issues for the entire ecosystem of digital sustainability.
This has been the case, for instance, for the relationship between digital sustainability and procurement, for the need to introduce maturity indicators, for impact assessment, for the relationship between sustainability and digital sovereignty, for the supervision of public competences and for the role of RTDs. This passage is significant: it shows that in-house organisations are not just an operational segment of the digital PA, but a privileged observatory on the transformations taking place.
In fact, their location makes it possible to intercept concrete needs, application criticalities and innovation opportunities. What is discussed in the group can thus contribute to a broader reflection, capable of affecting the guidelines, practices and strategic documents of public digital transformation.
Discussion with institutions and the three-year plan
One of the most relevant directions of recent work concerns the dialogue with national institutions and authorities. In particular, the discussion on the Three-Year Plan for IT in Public Administration 2027-2029 represents an important step to bring digital sustainability into strategic planning.
The orientation that emerged is clear: digital sustainability should not be treated as an isolated chapter, but as a transversal criterion. It should run through the different sections of the Plan, from procurement to investment, from infrastructure management to security, from service quality to impact measurement.
This means gradually introducing application elements, sub-indicators, evaluation criteria and monitoring tools. Digital sustainability must become readable and measurable: not just a guiding principle, but a set of verifiable actions.
In this perspective, the contribution of in-house organisations can be particularly useful. Their operational experience makes it possible to distinguish between mature actions, ready to be integrated into programming documents, and topics that still require experimentation, accompaniment or methodological definition.
Digital sovereignty and public critical mass
Another direction of work concerns digital sovereignty. This issue is increasingly central, because public digital transformation cannot depend solely on ungovernable external solutions, infrastructures or competences. Digital sustainability also includes the ability of the public system to maintain control, continuity, security and autonomy over its technological choices.
In-house companies can contribute to this perspective by creating critical mass. It is not a question of duplicating solutions or closing the public system to the market, but of strengthening the PA’s capacity to govern choices, to know its own architecture, to preside over essential building blocks, to avoid unsustainable dependencies and to structure a more aware public demand.
Digital sovereignty, in this sense, is not an abstract buzzword. It is the ability to know what one buys, why one buys it, what alternatives exist, what competences remain in the public domain, and what risks are taken. It is also the ability to collaborate between public actors, avoiding fragmentation and favouring reuse, interoperability and sharing.
In-house companies as territorial hubs
Another element that has emerged along the way is the territorial role of in-house companies. In-house companies do not operate in a neutral space: they are rooted in the territories, they dialogue with regional and local administrations, they support innovation processes that have a direct impact on citizens, businesses and communities.
This is why they can act as territorial hubs of digital sustainability. They can promote meetings with controlling bodies, accompany administrations in the reading of indicators, support RTDs, foster awareness-raising paths and contribute to the construction of coherent territorial agendas.
The experiences already undertaken in some territories show that this path is concrete. The challenge now is to structure it more organically, turning local initiatives into a replicable model. Digital sustainability, in fact, cannot be only national or only local: it must connect strategic direction, implementation capacity and knowledge of contexts.
Towards a position paper and a new phase of work
Some time after the decalogue was defined, the group started reflecting on updating it and the possibility of evolving it into a position paper. This is a natural step. The Decalogue had the merit of setting principles and guidelines; today, however, the context has changed and requires a more mature elaboration.
Themes to be integrated include digital sovereignty, impact assessment, strategic fit, the role of in-house companies as territorial hubs, the relationship with the three-year plan, risk management, security, sustainable procurement and building shared practices.
The position paper could be a useful tool to consolidate the group’s vision, strengthen the dialogue with institutions and offer administrations a more operational framework of reference. Not a theoretical document, but a working platform capable of guiding concrete choices.
An open trajectory
The journey of the in-house group of the Foundation for Digital Sustainability shows that digital sustainability is not only born in principles, but above all in practices. It is born when administrations begin to ask themselves what impact technologies have. It is born when procurement is geared not just to cost, but to value. It is born when infrastructures are thought of in terms of continuity, security and autonomy. It is born when indicators help measure the maturity of territories. It is born when public skills become an asset to be strengthened.
In-house companies are one of the places where this transformation can become concrete. By their very nature, they can accompany PAs towards a more responsible, more conscious and more common good-oriented digital culture. They can help transform digital sustainability from a statement of principle to a criterion of governance.
The work done so far points in one direction: building a public community capable of learning, measuring, sharing and impacting. A community in which in-house companies are considered not just operational tools, but enablers of the sustainable transformation of the public administration.
The challenge of the coming years will be to consolidate this function, expanding the group, strengthening institutional interlocutions, updating common tools, and bringing digital sustainability into the ordinary processes of PA. Because only when sustainability enters into day-to-day decisions, purchases, services, indicators and competences, can public digital really become a lever of value for the country.